Mother Modern Plumbing shares 50% of profits with employees

Dustin Marx, founder of Mother Modern Plumbing in Dallas, had been running a company that connected rental property owners with contractors in the trades. He admired the skill plumbers brought to their work, and also believed that water conservation and water quality would be growing concerns in the coming years. 

What’s happening: In the summer of 2024, Marx acquired a one-person plumbing business that was bringing in about $15,000 per month — and rebranded it. 

• To stand out from what he calls the “sea of sameness” across the industry, he chose the name Mother. It projected empathy and care, he told Homepros, and played on “the double entendre of like, ‘The Best of the Best,’ ‘The Mother of All.’” He also hopes to hire female plumbers, though he currently has one, an apprentice. 
• In total, Marx now has 16 plumbers and about 30 team members, he said. “We’re doing between $750,000 and $800,000 a month now. So I think we’ll do over $10 million this year.” 
• “The big goal this year, if everything can work itself out, is that we pay out a million dollars of profit to our team,” he added. 

Catch up quick: “I just love entrepreneurship,” Marx said. He figured he could teach plumbers to be as good at business as they are at their craft. “I wanted everyone to be on the same page and have all of us incentivized to achieve the same thing.” 

• He was inspired by Les Schwab Tire Centers, a once-independent chain based in Oregon, and a management concept called The Great Game of Business, which espouses transparency with employees and giving them a financial stake in business outcomes. 

How it works: Mother’s staffers get paid weekly — some hourly, some salaried, some performance-based, depending on the position. During a weekly meeting, each plumber forecasts their own profitability. 

• “They almost kind of view their truck as their own business unit,” Marx said. They lay out expected revenues, as well as costs for materials, marketing, and apprentices. 
• Once a year, they review the company’s profits. 50 percent goes to employees, and of that, 15 percent is invested in a retirement trust fund set up in lieu of a 401(k) plan, and the rest is shared, with certain employees getting a larger share than others, based on their role. 
• Staff who met certain performance targets were rewarded with a trip to Maui, and this year, Marx will similarly incentivize employees with a cruise. 

The other side: The structure could incentivize plumbers to upsell unnecessarily, but Marx noted, “What we’ve seen is the opposite, in that our plumbers are thinking longer term, and so they kind of take inspiration from, like, Starbucks: It’s not the $4 cup of coffee; it’s the $14,000 customer who comes back to Starbucks repeatedly.” 

• “There may be a year or time where we’re not profitable,” and cutbacks could be necessary, he conceded. “But at least everyone knows the score and knows why, and then we can work to improve upon it, whatever the challenge is.”
• “People aren’t dumb, right?” he added. “You’re not gonna hide stuff from your employees. Might as well just say, ‘Here’s the issues, here’s where we’re being challenged, and collectively, how do we solve this?’” 

What we’re watching: “We want to become the preeminent brand of plumbing in Texas,” Marx said. He envisions his plumbers opening their own branches or franchises across the state. 

• “Being from Texas, there’s a lot of Texas pride, and there’s some really cool Texas brands,” he said, adding that he’d love to be as well-known as Buc-ees or Chick-Fil-A. “Our goal is by 2036 to be at $300 million [with] 15 locations throughout the state of Texas.”